Entertainment

Lady Gaga Joins Google+ [VIDEO]

Pop megastar Lady Gaga just expanded her powerful social media presence with a Google+ profile. But while Gaga has racked up the most followers on Twitter with 18 million, she still has a long way to go before claiming the most followers on Google's social network.

Gaga's profile arrives six months after Google+ launched, which has given other celebrities a head start accumulating large fan bases. For example, Britney Spears has had the most people put her in Google+ circles — nearly 1.5 million — compared to Gaga's 14,000.

Her late entry into the Google+ world comes as a surprise, seeing as she previously was involved in several high-profile Google initiatives: a Chrome commercial and Google Goes Gaga, a sit-down session with Google executive Marissa Mayer to promote Google Moderator. At that time, Mayer said, "At Google, we’ve seen Gaga build her career by embracing technology … as well as constantly innovating for her fans."

Gaga has posted three times since launching her profile Jan. 15. The posts tout her Album of the Year win at the People's Choice Awards, beer and baseball. Gaga turned to her Facebook Page, which has 46 million fans, to promote her new Google+ account. That Monday night post garnered north of 21,000 likes.

BONUS: How Lady Gaga Used the Web to Propel Her Last Album

In the months leading up to the May 23 Born This Way album release — and even now — Gaga has paved a path for stars and brands to get inventive with the ways they use digital and social media to promote themselves and connect with fans. Gaga is no stranger to success on the web. She remains a heavyweight on major social networks. The promotional juggernaut further ramped up her all-encompassing web presence, fostering partnerships with Zynga for the FarmVille-inspired GagaVille, Starbucks for a massive scavenger hunt, VEVO for exclusive premieres, HBO for a concert special, Rdio for free lifetime subscriptions, iTunes for a promotional countdown, Best Buy and Livestream for an album signing and Gilt Groupe and Amazon Cloud Player for deals.

Below, we’ve compiled a huge swathe of the digital and social media initiatives behind Gaga’s Born This Way.

How Lady Gaga Created a Web Marketing Spectacle for Born This Way

Zynga's GagaVille

On May 17, Zynga launched the Farmville-style GagaVille, which garnered much ridicule from Gaga haters and laughs from even the most devoted Little Monsters.

Gamers were able to unlock and stream unreleased tracks from Born This Way and bonus remixes. The game incorporated Gaga's style and personality with users having access to crystals, unicorns and sheep on motorcycles. The GagaVille campaign also incorporated Zynga game cards (buy a $25 card and receive the Born This Way album and bonus tracks for free); Words With Friends (use a Gaga word of the day and be entered for concert tickets); and RewardVille (win virtual goods to use in other Zynga games).

Starbucks Scavenger Hunt

Starbucks and Mother Monster teamed up on May 19 for “SRCH,” a two-week digital scavenger hunt in which participants can scan in-store QR codes, visit blogs and Starbucks digital properties, decode cryptic messages and answer trivia questions to earn prizes.

Yahoo joined the fun on May 23, helping transform the Starbucks Digital Network into all things Gaga. Visitors to the site had access to a special edition of the Born This Way for one day. They also received a free “Edge of Glory” download and an exclusive video by Lady Gaga singing a cappella.

"Considering that Lady Gaga may be the world’s hottest star right now and an innovative creator unlike anyone we’ve seen, imagine our delight when we learned that she’s also a big Starbucks fan," said Alexandra Wheeler, global digital strategy director for Starbucks, in a recent blog post.

The hunt ends June 7.

Google Chrome Commercial

In the this commerical, Gaga is shown at a computer typing inspirational messages such as, "This is our moment. ... Stay strong, Little Monsters!"

The video highlights two things other than the capabilities of Google's web browser: The extent to which fans will broadcast their adoration for Gaga and also Gaga's willingness to return their positive sentiments.

The song for the video is "Edge of Glory," a song from the new album.

Amazon's $0.99 Sale

Gaga fans woke up May 23 to a nice surprise: Amazon was selling the 14-song album as a digital download for a mere $0.99. Fans also received 20 GB of Cloud Drive storage from Amazon.

News of the massive sale spread like wildfire and consumers quickly started experiencing technical difficulties. With servers overwhelmed, people who bought the digital download were unable to immediately access all tracks.

In time, all songs became available, but Amazon users had already unleashed their anger by leaving one-star ratings due to Amazon’s slow service.

To get back on the good side of consumers, Amazon offered the deal again a few days later on May 26. In a tweet, @AmazonMP3 said, “We’re doing it again and this time we’re ready.”

Amazon has not disclosed the number of downloads for Born This Way.

Best Buy Live Feed

On album launch day, Lady Gaga stayed up into the wee hours of the night to meet fans and sign autographs at a Best Buy in New York City.

Best Buy promoted the event with a live video feed from Livestream. The video was surrounded by interactive features for fans who couldn't make it to the event.

Google Interview

In March, Google executive Marissa Mayer interviewed Lady Gaga as part of the “Google Goes Gaga" event. She helped promote Google Moderator, a tool that allows fans to submit questions via text or video on the musician’s YouTube channel and subsequently vote for their favorites.

During the Q&A, Gaga talked about her forthcoming album and revealed that she would make her directorial debut alongside choreographer Laurieann Gibson for her second single, “Judas.”

Through Google Moderator, her fans asked 643 questions about the single.

Near the end, Gaga asked a rhetorical yet fitting question to the audience of Google employees and online viewers, “Don’t you love the Internet?”

Robin Hood Charity

In April, Gaga once again dipped her feet into social good by working with the Robin Hood Foundation to launch two Facebook contests in support of the New York-based charity, which benefits the poor and homeless between the ages of 16 and 24.

The contest — to decide how Lady Gaga should split $1 million among five charities — ran from April 26 to May 6 and received 1,057,101 votes.>

She also lent her hand to the victims of the March 11 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, providing an exclusive remix of her single “Born This Way" for the Songs for Japan charity album.

Gaga also donated $1.5 million to Zynga’s fundraising initiative with Save the Children and the American Red Cross via sales of her Japan Prayer Bracelets.

Gilt Groupe Deals

Gilt Groupe offered sales curated by Gaga's fashion director, Nicola Formichetti, as well as charity sales of a Mugler dress worn by Gaga, entrance into the Paris Mugler fashion show and access to a performance from Gaga.

HBO Concert Special

HBO aired Gaga's Monster Ball concert at New York City's Madison Square Garden on May 7.

Rdio Free Music

Rdio created a BTW playlist and a corresponding contest to give away a free music subscription.

Facebook Engagement

Gaga ended 2010 as the celebrity with the most "Likes" on a Facebook Page with 24.7 million Likes.

She has one of the most active and engaged Facebook Pages not only because of her fans but also because she frequently shares status updates, photos, videos and news through the platform. On May 18, for example, she posted a photo collage that displays her album art on buildings, cars and even in and around a New York City subway train.

Vevo Exclusive Premieres

Vevo has so far exclusively premiered each of the official music videos for Born This Way.

The song "Born This Way" has racked up 52.7 million views on Vevo's website and "Judas" has accumulated 35.6 million.

VEVO also recently put together a Lady Gaga playlist available online, on the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch or Android devices using the VEVO for iOS or VEVO for Android apps. The playlist includes live versions of "Edge of Glory/Judas" and "Born this Way’ from the May 21 season finale of Saturday Night Live.

iTunes Countdown

Capitalizing on her success, Lady Gaga released two additional songs in advance exclusively on iTunes. Fans got to hear "Edge of Glory" on May 9 and "Hair" on May 16 ahead of the May 23 album release.

GagaVision Videos

A fan favorite, GagaVision gives her Little Monsters a behind-the-scenes look at Gaga. In some of the videos, which are posted on YouTube, Gaga candidly discusses the creative process behind BTW. In other clips, fans get to see the people and places surrounding Gaga.

Twitter & TwitPic Trends

The messages she posts incite a tweet storm from her followers who retweet and @mention her comments, pictures and videos, as well as promote the hashtags she uses.

In April, for example, she revealed the BTW cover art via a Twitpic photo (seen above). The image garnered hundreds of thousands of views in mere minutes.

And More ...

As if that wasn't enough:

Gaga scattered QR codes (pictured) on the web that led back to iTunes where users could download a ringtone of "Born This Way."

Tapulous, a Disney Mobile venture, launched Born This Way Revenge, a Tap Tap Revenge app game for iPhone and iPod. The app features 17 tracks from the deluxe album version, access to GagaVision, Lady Gaga's Twitter feed, three exclusive chat rooms, the official lyrics and Haus of Gaga event lists.

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